Choice and The Charleston Company Launch ccAdvisor

Choice and The Charleston Company today announced the launch of ccAdvisor, an online review source for information databases and digital resources. Itself a database, ccAdvisor draws upon the traditions of objectivity and scholarly excellence that characterize both Choice and The Charleston Advisor to create the source for the evaluation and selection of digital resources for libraries.

In these tough budget times and with hundreds if not thousands of resources for libraries to choose from, Choice and The Charleston Company have collaborated to create an authoritative and ground-breaking tool that evaluates databases and digital resources. Choice and The Charleston Advisor are well-known and highly respected review sources, and ccAdvisor builds on the architecture of both to present an entirely new product that is faceted, allowing users to filter by subject, type of resource, target audience, or access type (open, subscription, one-time purchase, hybrid), to compile and export lists, save searches, and set alerts. Better yet, the database allows users to construct side-by-side comparison tables of their own. Launching now, ccAdvisor contains 300 reviews and will see at least 200 new reviews added in the first year.

Rather than a digital edition of the reviews in the Advisor or Choice Reviews, ccAdvisor is an entirely new product. Because it is a database, not simply an archive of reviews, the information in ccAdvisor will be continuously updated and remain current through round after round of product upgrades and successor versions of standing works.

As Choice Editor and Publisher Mark Cummings notes, ccAdvisor is more than simply a selection tool. “Because it also reviews open-access resources, public websites, and tools, the work is an all-purpose guide for students and faculty looking to rapidly assess the scope and quality of resources needed for their research. ccAdvisor brings a powerful new voice to the evaluation of information databases.”

“ccAdvisor is what all of us collection developers have been waiting for,” said Katina Strauch, chair of the Board of The Charleston Advisor and Assistant Dean for Technical Services at the College of Charleston Addlestone Library. “I’m excited about the launch.”

“What a wonderful way to mark our 18th year of publication for The Charleston Advisor. We are very pleased to be working with Choice to bring our reviews to the new ccAdvisor platform, which allows us to keep them up-to-date and accessible to a wider audience of library professionals,” added Rebecca Lenzini, president of The Charleston Company.

More information on ccAdvisor, including how to register for a free trial, is available by visiting the Choice 360 website.